Google and Mississippi meet in court over secret MPAA lobbying

A devastating hack on Sony late last year exposed embarrassing details about Hollywood’s darker side, including a secret campaign by the movie industry to bring about new copyright controls. Dubbed “Project Goliath,” the plan relied in part on the Motion Picture Association of America colluding with state officials in order to investigate and harass Google.

Now, in a Friday hearing that promises to be equal parts constitutional law and political theater, Google will try and persuade a federal judge in Jackson, Mississippi, to rein in the state’s controversial Attorney General, Jim Hood.

“For nearly two years, Attorney General Hood has pressured Google to remove and censor content that he and Hollywood don’t like — even though he lacks legal authority to do so,” said Google’s general counsel, Kent Walker, in a statement. “Attorney General Hood’s extraordinary 79-page subpoena is an unjustified assault on free speech and we’re asking the federal court to set it aside. We…